Environmental Contamination of Ready-to-Eat (RTE) Foods

Wednesday August 22nd 2018

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One of the three most critical food safety
issues facing the food industry today is environmental contamination of
ready-to-eat foods (RTEs). Ready-to-eat foods have no kill step applied
between the sale of the product and consumption by consumers. Demand for such
product is drastically increasing as consumers look for increasing levels of
convenience.

Over the past several years, FDA
recall investigations have repeatedly shown that most farms are impacted by a
myriad of environmental bacterial contaminants, man applied chemicals and
impossible to remove physical hazards. The FDA has failed to report these
findings due to the inability of science and technology to quickly test for
and verify such contaminants prior to shipment to market.

In other words, there is no lower
tier solution available to protect the downstream supply chain or the
consuming public.

Why ?

RTE supply chain members need to begin to
understand the risk levels that exist at farms, through processing and into
the consuming public. In many instances, farm level bacterial contamination
is simply not controllable meaning that producer and processor controls
become ever more critical.

While fresh produce represents only
one type of RTE, environmental contaminants abound and, indeed, new ones are
being discovered daily. Farms are left without a low cost, portable, quick
turn-around ability to test water, product and soil. With a 2-3-day lag
between harvest and test results, the supply chain is laid open to multiple
liability levels.

The importance of time and
temperature controls and the use of microorganism reduction strategies, cross
contamination, cross contact (allergens) and controls all impact these risk
levels and should be understood with regards to varying consumer ages,
health, the length of time foods remain refrigerated prior to consumption and
other variables.

Dr. John Ryan is a certified Preventive
Controls Qualified Individual (PQCI) specializing in food safety process
control and food safety plan validation. He holds a Ph.D. in research and
statistical methods and has extensive international manufacturing quality and
operations experience in large and small manufacturing operations. He is a
retired Hawaii State Department of Agriculture Quality Assurance Division
administrator. He currently operates two business divisions focused on
preventive control validation at http://www.RyanSystems.com and food safety
during transportation operations at http://www.SanitaryColdChain.com. His
latest book entitled “ Validating Preventive Food Safety and Quality
Controls: An Organizational Approach to System Design and Implementation” is
now available from Barnes & Noble or Amazon.

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